City to add P7T to PWD aid

Council passes resolution to include P65.4M for PWD’s aid; addition will mean P12T total

THE Cebu City Council wants to increase by P7,000 the financial assistance being given by the City Government to the more than 9,300 persons-with-disabilities (PWD) in the city.

The legislative body recently passed a resolution authored by Councilor Eugenio Gabuya that seeks the inclusion in the next supplemental budget of the City some P65.4 million to cover the increase.

The City is now only giving P5,000 cash aid to the PWD’s in the city.

If the increase will be approved, this would mean that each PWD’s will already be receiving P12,000 financial assistance from the City. It will be the same with the P12,000 financial assistance given to the estimated 60,000 senior citizens.

“The City recognizes the right of its differently-abled persons or PWD’s by providing avenues wherein they can participate in formulating programs and activities that would cater to their needs and development,” Gabuya’s one-page resolution reads.

“There is a need to increase the financial assistance to the PWD to P12,000 per year effective this year because of the inevitable increase of basic commodities,” he added.

Approved

Gabuya’s resolution was approved by the council during their regular session in Wednesday.

Sought for comment about this, Mayor Michael Rama said he is amenable to the increase.

“Tan-awon nato kung naay kwarta kay sayon ra man na. Wa man nay problema. Basta tan-awon nato, balanse-balanse (Let’s see if there is money since that will be easy. There is no problem with that. But we’ll see, we’ll balance things),” he said.

That, considering he had announced during his State of the City Address (Soca) last July that he will be increasing the P4,000 monthly financial assistance of barangay workers and the P10,000 burial assistance among others.

Promise

While he has not yet disclosed how much will the increase for the barangay workers be, Rama said he wants to double the burial assistance.

Rama previously said he hopes to have the increases included in the City’s proposed annual budget for 2016.

Rama said, though, that there should be categorization or leveling in the giving of additional financial assistance to the PWDs, saying that the disability of one is different from the other.

“Naa man gud na PWD nga putol ang kamot. Naay PWD nga dili katingog. Naay PWD nga gamay ra ug putol ang kamot unya gitagaan ug dako. Mao na siya. Dapat fair and reasonable criteria (There are PWD’s with severed hands. Some can’t speak. The distribution is not equitable),” he said.

Department of Social Welfare and Services (DSWS) Chief Ester Concha echoed the statement of the mayor.

She said she will be meeting with the with Cebu City Federation of Persons With Disabilities about the matter.

“Let’s based the additional cash assistance on the need of a PWD. It will be unfair if they receive the same amount. We need grading later on,” she said.

Rama already directed the DSWS to submit to him their inputs about the plan to increase the PWD’s cash aid.